Improving the Reach of Vaccines to Low-Resource Regions, With a Needle-Free Vaccine Delivery Device and Long-Term Thermostabilization

In this article, published in the Journal of Controlled Release, the authors describe how dry-coated microprojections, a needle-free vaccine delivery device, can deliver vaccine to abundant antigen-presenting cells in the skin and induce efficient immune responses, and are expected to be thermostable at elevated temperatures. The authors were able to dramatically improve their previously reported gas-jet drying coating method and greatly increase the delivery efficiency of coating from patch to skin using an influenza vaccine. The dry-coated microprojection patches thus have key and unique attributes in ultimately meeting the medical need in certain low-resource regions with low vaccine affordability and difficulty in maintaining “cold-chain” for vaccine storage and transport. ABSTRACT ONLY. (Learn how users in developing countries can gain free access to journal articles.)

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